The strange period between Christmas and new year catches me out every time.

You’d think I would have learned by now that a year only has 51 weeks in it and then an extra seven-day buffer zone at the end. It’s like the spare tape after the songs have finished on a cassette. It’s not long enough to do anything useful with, you just sit it out till it stops.

Normally I would say it is a good time to think over the events of the last year, but that’s not an easy thing to do this time. I should know, I tried it. I have released my annual eBook.

For the last three years I have compiled various newspaper columns and other written work and put it in book form as a record of the previous 12 months. The first two volumes were called Lasted Another Year and Lasted Yet Another Year so I feel that I may have tempted fate and caused the viral outbreak in 2020. This year’s book is called Lasted Another Year Despite A Pandemic, which is less of a humorous title and more of an actual boast.

As you can imagine, there is a strong theme to my writing in 2020. It was strange to see the book start off as a normal January with worries of Meghan and Harry doing less work. Then the lockdown came in and we all worked less.

On a personal note, it has been a year where I lost my mother and I haven’t been able to see my father as he is in a care home with dementia. Even in that there has been light. It brings a smile to my face when I remember how silly my dad thinks I’m being when I stand outside a window to speak to him. He must think I have lost my mind.

Looking back through the book it was odd to see the times I wrote about lockdown ending or my first pint in an actual pub again. You can tell that I thought it was the beginning of the end and that soon things would return to normal. That is why I am not called up as an expert for the government.

It was a year where we cared more about Scotch eggs than we really should. We appreciated people who do the jobs that make our lives work. We looked after one another a little more.

2021 could be a lot of things. A year of vaccines, reopenings, reunions and returns to normal. Remember, we have to fit it into only 51 useful weeks.